Nintendo Announces Wii Zelda/Remote Bundle, Portable Release Dates

Nintendo's upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be available in a special edition bundle with a gold Wii Remote when it hits stores November 20, the company has announced. The bundle will be priced at $69.99, and though the game will also be available on its own for a suggested price of $49.99, the gold controller will only be available bundled with a copy of Skyward Sword. In addition, the initial print run of Zelda discs will come packaged with an audio CD of orchestral music from the upcoming series of traveling Zelda 25th Anniversary concerts, starting later this year. Nintendo also announced release dates for a number of portable titles for the remainder of the year, including 3DS puzzler Tetris: Axis on October 2 and DS puzzle-adventure title Professor Layton and the Last Specter on October 17. The titles come in advance of other major 3DS franchise releases in the last quarter of the year, including Pokemon Rumble Blast on October 24, Super Mario 3D Land in November, and Mario Kart 7 in December. Nintendo has been facing a difficult hardware market in recent months, with Wii sales down precipitously from record highs in past years and the 3DS seeing slower than expected initial sales, necessitating a steep price drop.